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I am a great admirer of Chandrasekhar but his style of writing is very difficult to learn from. I thought I was common enough to read his Principia exposition

I am a great admirer of Chandrasekhar but his style of writing is very difficult to learn from. I thought I was common enough to read his Principia exposition but learned I was a few levels below standard.

rramadass 2y ago
Ha, Ha! Chandrasekhar being a "Master" himself has a definition of a "Common Reader" which is notches above what the public assumes it to be. It is up to us "the students" to rise to the occasion i.e. there is no royal road to anything worthwhile. His book is also written from a different viewpoint where he gives his proof using modern mathematics notation (hence you are already supposed to know Calculus) to Newton's propositions before showing you how Newton himself worked it out in the Principia. My suggestion is to not let this dissuade you from studying it but to consider it as a lifelong journey towards understanding at your own pace. All of the above texts are non-trivial and hence one should not expect an easy endeavour.
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago
  Maybe in the next life! I never expect anything remotely easy when looking at a Chandrasekhar paper or book. Even his public talks were beyond stratospheric. He gave a couple of them at Berkeley in 1976[1]. I was in middle school at the time and went along with my parents. Large, full auditorium for both sessions and looking back, they were given at such a high level that I think even professional physicists would have struggled to follow all of them. His Ryerson lectures at Chicago are similarly highbrow. I stood in line and shook his hand. I remember the gray hair and the immaculate charcoal-gray suit. I don't think he smiled. [1] https://gradlectures.berkeley.edu/series/hitchcock/page/3/ https://gradlectures.berkeley.edu/series/hitchcock/page/3/ [2] https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo4432943.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo443294...
  - rramadass 2y ago
    Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was a very unique and rather underrated Physicist due to the then prevalent colonial racism attitudes. He received his Nobel prize some 50 years after he made his discovery when he was just 19/early-20s. His uniqueness lies in his breadth of study which he consciously adopted after being undermined/betrayed by Arthur Eddington on his stellar structure studies. Here is a nice short film with his own words - https://aeon.co/videos/the-indian-astronomer-whose-innovative-work-on-black-holes-was-mocked-at-cambridge https://aeon.co/videos/the-indian-astronomer-whose-innovativ... A longish biography, Nobel at Ninteen, S. Chandrasekhar here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXTruZkQ7hI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXTruZkQ7hI A short interview with the man himself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-lJjR7pM7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-lJjR7pM7k Finally, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar ; He wrote that his scientific research was motivated by his desire to participate in the progress of different subjects in science to the best of his ability, and that the prime motive underlying his work was systematization. "What a scientist tries to do essentially is to select a certain domain, a certain aspect, or a certain detail, and see if that takes its appropriate place in a general scheme which has form and coherence; and, if not, to seek further information which would help him to do that". Chandrasekhar developed a unique style of mastering several fields of physics and astrophysics; consequently, his working life can be divided into distinct periods. He would exhaustively study a specific area, publish several papers in it and then write a book summarizing the major concepts in the field. He would then move on to another field for the next decade and repeat the pattern. Thus he studied stellar structure, including the theory of white dwarfs, during the years 1929 to 1939, and subsequently focused on stellar dynamics, theory of Brownian motion from 1939 to 1943. Next, he concentrated on the theory of radiative transfer and the quantum theory of the negative ion of hydrogen from 1943 to 1950. This was followed by sustained work on turbulence and hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability from 1950 to 1961. In the 1960s, he studied both the equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, and general relativity. During the period, 1971 to 1983 he studied the mathematical theory of black holes, and, finally, during the late 80s, he worked on the theory of colliding gravitational waves. Chandrasekhar was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars. Chandrasekhar accepted this honour, but was upset the citation mentioned only his earliest work, seeing it as a denigration of a lifetime's achievement.

rramadass 2y ago

Ha, Ha! Chandrasekhar being a "Master" himself has a definition of a "Common Reader" which is notches above what the public assumes it to be. It is up to us "the students" to rise to the occasion i.e. there is no royal road to anything worthwhile. His book is also written from a different viewpoint where he gives his proof using modern mathematics notation (hence you are already supposed to know Calculus) to Newton's propositions before showing you how Newton himself worked it out in the Principia. My suggestion is to not let this dissuade you from studying it but to consider it as a lifelong journey towards understanding at your own pace. All of the above texts are non-trivial and hence one should not expect an easy endeavour.

OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago
Maybe in the next life! I never expect anything remotely easy when looking at a Chandrasekhar paper or book. Even his public talks were beyond stratospheric. He gave a couple of them at Berkeley in 1976[1]. I was in middle school at the time and went along with my parents. Large, full auditorium for both sessions and looking back, they were given at such a high level that I think even professional physicists would have struggled to follow all of them. His Ryerson lectures at Chicago are similarly highbrow. I stood in line and shook his hand. I remember the gray hair and the immaculate charcoal-gray suit. I don't think he smiled. [1] https://gradlectures.berkeley.edu/series/hitchcock/page/3/ https://gradlectures.berkeley.edu/series/hitchcock/page/3/ [2] https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo4432943.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo443294...
- rramadass 2y ago
  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was a very unique and rather underrated Physicist due to the then prevalent colonial racism attitudes. He received his Nobel prize some 50 years after he made his discovery when he was just 19/early-20s. His uniqueness lies in his breadth of study which he consciously adopted after being undermined/betrayed by Arthur Eddington on his stellar structure studies. Here is a nice short film with his own words - https://aeon.co/videos/the-indian-astronomer-whose-innovative-work-on-black-holes-was-mocked-at-cambridge https://aeon.co/videos/the-indian-astronomer-whose-innovativ... A longish biography, Nobel at Ninteen, S. Chandrasekhar here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXTruZkQ7hI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXTruZkQ7hI A short interview with the man himself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-lJjR7pM7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-lJjR7pM7k Finally, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar ; He wrote that his scientific research was motivated by his desire to participate in the progress of different subjects in science to the best of his ability, and that the prime motive underlying his work was systematization. "What a scientist tries to do essentially is to select a certain domain, a certain aspect, or a certain detail, and see if that takes its appropriate place in a general scheme which has form and coherence; and, if not, to seek further information which would help him to do that". Chandrasekhar developed a unique style of mastering several fields of physics and astrophysics; consequently, his working life can be divided into distinct periods. He would exhaustively study a specific area, publish several papers in it and then write a book summarizing the major concepts in the field. He would then move on to another field for the next decade and repeat the pattern. Thus he studied stellar structure, including the theory of white dwarfs, during the years 1929 to 1939, and subsequently focused on stellar dynamics, theory of Brownian motion from 1939 to 1943. Next, he concentrated on the theory of radiative transfer and the quantum theory of the negative ion of hydrogen from 1943 to 1950. This was followed by sustained work on turbulence and hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability from 1950 to 1961. In the 1960s, he studied both the equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, and general relativity. During the period, 1971 to 1983 he studied the mathematical theory of black holes, and, finally, during the late 80s, he worked on the theory of colliding gravitational waves. Chandrasekhar was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars. Chandrasekhar accepted this honour, but was upset the citation mentioned only his earliest work, seeing it as a denigration of a lifetime's achievement.